Jeffrey Fleishman is on a mission

This LA Times reporter must have received training at the New Republic. His dispatches always have that NYT angle (the angle of "how can I serve Israeli interests in my job") which derails the journalistic mission if there is any. Of all the interesting Arab intellectuals out there, he finds a less than mediocre playwright (whose claims to fame, Madrasat Al-Mushaghibin, is plagiarized and carries less than sophomoric humor), `Ali Salem, to cover and only because he went to Israel. Salem is like Arab leaders: he says one thing in Arabic, and another in English. On Aljazeera, Salem is often anti-Semitic but as long as he is well-behaved in English and as long as he visits Israel, he will be approved and will receive those $50,000 prizes (for what?--do his awarders read his silly columns in Arabic in Ash-Sharq Al-Awsat and decide to recognize him, or is this a prize for Those Arabs who Visit Israel?). If Fleishman covers a story about an earthquake in some dessert in the Middle East, he will interview survivors and ask them about their feelings toward peace with Israel. Do you want my views on that too?